Nothing. His transmitter might have been damaged in the landing, or else no one was listening on the frequency at the moment. He set the SAR radio to broadcast an emergency beacon, then turned to Tomboy.
"Let me take a look at that leg," he told her. First, he pulled a morphine syrette from his first-aid kit, pulled open the tear in her flight suit, squeezed a handful of skin and muscle, and jammed the needle home.
"That ought to make you feel real good," he told her.
"A real… high."
With a grease pencil included in the first-aid kit, he marked the letter "M" on her forehead, and the time. The small ritual was comforting, an acknowledgment that they were going to get out of this.
"You don't really think we're gonna get rescued, do you?" she asked. Her eyes were glassy, the words slurred. He thought she must already be in shock.
"'Course we are," he told her. "Brace yourself now. This might hurt, morphine or no morphine."
It did hurt; she fought back a yelp as he straightened her leg.
Tombstone looked around for a splint, but there wasn't a thing to be found but the soldier's AKM. He'd hoped to use the weapon ― an AKM with a thirty-round magazine was better than a pistol any day ― but he also needed a splint, and even with an assault rifle, he wouldn't be able to hold the enemy off for long once they showed up in force. He used his knife to cut generous lengths of nylon cord from the parachute, as well as strips from the canopy that he could use as bandages and padding. He removed the AKM's banana magazine, did his best to straighten out Tomboy's leg, then began tying the rifle above and below the break, keeping her leg rigid from thigh to ankle. He tried just once to set the bone, but he stopped when she screamed. Unable to see what he was doing, and unwilling to damage her leg more than it already was, he settled at last for simply immobilizing it, wrapping it in swaths of parachute nylon.
After a while, Tomboy opened her eyes as he worked. "Hey, CAG." Her voice sounded dreamy now, and she smiled. "Is it true what some of the girls are saying?"
"What's that?"
"That some sailor snuck into our shower and took photographs of us in there."
"Where the hell did that come from?"
"All the girls are talking about it."
How did news spread so swiftly through a ship's company? Tombstone had hoped the women would never find out about that episode. Obviously, though, he'd not counted on the incredible speed and power of the shipboard dissemination of rumor.
"It's true."
"Any in there of me? Heard there was."
"Yes. One."
"I must've… looked awful without my makeup."
"Oh, from what I could see, you looked pretty good."
"I'll bet. Ha! So much for all those women's issues sensitivity sessions. You're not supposed to notice things like that."
"So much for privacy aboard ship. Even one as big as the Jeff." He straightened up. "How's that feel?"
"It hurts like hell. CAG?"
"Yeah?"
"We're not going to get out of this, are we?"
"Sure we are. We've got our beacon out. They'll hear us."
"Yeah, but they can hear it too. You'd better take off without me."
"Nope."
"The Marine lines can't be more than five or six miles north of here.
Damn it, Captain, why should both of us get caught? Why should you get caught?"
"Why don't you shut up? You women talk too much, you know that?"
"You bastard! Get out of here now, while you can."
"And how effective a CAG would I be after that, knowing I'd run off and left one of my men, half stoned on morphine and lying out here in the mud?
What are you trying to do, Tomboy, ruin my career?"
She laughed, an involuntary snicker. Then the pain in her leg hit her and she gasped. Biting her lip, she shook her head. "Tombstone, if you don't-"
"Hush!" Tombstone raised his pistol. He could hear the rumble of an engine, nearby and growing closer. The source was masked by that low mound of earth and snow to the north.
Slowly, Tombstone rose to his feet. "Something's coming."
Troops spilled over the crest of the rise, spreading out to either side.
It took Tombstone a shocked half-second to recognize the uniforms, to put up his pistol.
"I'm Sergeant Bradley," the lead Marine said. "You Navy guys pick the God-damnedest places for LZs!"
"What?"
"You got yourself a shit-load of Russians heading this way, sir, but we beat 'em out by about two minutes. Come on. We've got a hummer on the other side of the ridge. We'll take your pal here."
Gathered up by the Marine recon patrol, Tombstone and Tomboy were escorted back to a cluster of camouflaged vehicles waiting a few yards beyond the ridge. Overhead, a trio of Tomcats boomed low across the tundra, the sunlight flashing from their wings.
The reality of his and Tomboy's rescue didn't hit home until that moment.
Admiral Karelin never did find out that Pravda's missile had not made it clear of the launch tube. He'd heard the sub's weapons officer shout the word "fire," but then he'd waited, and waited, listening for some confirmation of launch, and heard nothing but static.
But the missile had to have gotten clear, had to have arrowed into the sky over Polyamyy on its way to Chelyabinsk. The sub base had been under attack, he knew that, and it was possible that the Pravda had been hit within seconds of the launch, but nothing could stop an ICBM once it was clear of its tube, nothing!
But there was no further word from Polyamyy, and no confirmation from Moscow that the missile had descended on Chelyabinsk. Perhaps, after all, something had gone wrong.
Damn the American carrier forces! Somehow, they'd managed to take out the pride of the Russian Northern Fleet, spoiling for a second time an attempt to end once and for all the civil war destroying his country.
Always, it seemed, it was the U.S. Navy, the Americans and their far-ranging carrier aircraft.
Ironically, it was not the U.S. Navy at all, but an F-117 Stealth aircraft that punched home the final seal of Karelin's destiny.
The Kandalaksha base had been identified the day before by its microwave transmissions. During the night, several cruise-missile attacks and bombing strikes had been made against Karelin's bunker, a low, concrete blockhouse squatting on the plain north of Kandalaksha's military air base. Now, a Stealth Fighter was holding a targeting laser steady on the target, a three-foot-wide ventilation grill on the bunker's roof. The bomb, released moments earlier, was gliding toward the spot of reflected laser light, its control surfaces twitching this way and that to keep its glide path on target.
Smoothly, as though placed there by hand, the one-thousand-pound bomb slipped through the ventilator, bursting through aluminum slats and fittings as though they were cardboard, penetrating yards of concrete and steel before detonating at last in a savage blast.
Admiral Karelin never felt the explosion that killed him.
EPILOGUE
The SH-3 helicopter settled gently to Jefferson's deck. Tombstone unsnapped his harness and, clutching at his cranial with one hand, jumped through the open door to the deck. Ducking to avoid the still-spinning rotor blades, he trotted across the flight deck toward the carrier's island.
Admiral Tarrant, Captain Brandt, Coyote, and several aides stood there, waiting for him.